Grown Man Music

As I grow older, I keep catching myself thinking about who I am. Deep, I know. But I see people my age and I think, “When the fuck are they going to grow up.” We all know how romanticized staying young has become, but part of me just wants to be an adult. Now That I am a “20 something” I have asked myself: what kind of rap music I am supposed to be listening to? I guess the first question that needs to be asked is, “Should I still be listening to rap music?”

And the obvious answer to that is, “Fuck yeah you should listen to rap music, don’t be a little bitch.” As far as I am concerned, there are only three options to consider: Old Rap, College Rap and Gangster Rap.

College Rap is the first genre to be nexted. There is no good reason for it to be called “college” rap anyway. The chances that any of these (mostly) white kids went to college is slim. They probably all went for a semester or two and then dropped out, or even more likely, they visited the local college quite frequently after high school to party and pop molly or whatever the hell college freshman do these days. The main reason for casting college rappers aside so quickly is jealousy. These young kids donning colorful Supreme snap backs just rap about how much money they have and how much partying they do, two things I could both use more of. But another reason is that the lifestyle they are promoting is so different from the life I currently live, and that is by choice. Sure I could blow all my money and “party like there is no tomorrow” but I am not just trying to “stack paper” I am trying to have “regularly scheduled automatic deposits into a Roth IRA.”

I hate to say it, but Old Rap has to go next. And by “Old Rap” I mean anything older than five years, so this can cover a wide array of music, from the Sugar Hill Gang (eww) to the Big Tymers (Getcha Roll On). The reason we have to throw out the best rap music is because everyone has heard every good rap song a million times. It is very rare that I am introduced to a new song, and these gems should be cherished;it is completely acceptable to throw a couple retro-gangster songs into that playlist. Plus, it would be nice to hear a song without someone yelling “SWAG!” every second. By the time one can be considered a “20 something,” they have undoubtably memorized every lyric of Ready to Die and “Hit ‘Em Up” isn’t even cool anymore. I am sorry, Andre 3k, even though I still love Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, most people don’t.

And just like during my childhood, gangster rap prevails. Schoolboy Q, A$AP Rocky and the like are the closest thing we have to real rappers (As much as he probably hates it, I am clumping Wiz Khalifa in with the College Rappers), and that is coming from someone with no street credentials. The reason why I would rather listen to gangsters rapping about making tons of money from selling crack than college kids rapping about making so much money from rapping is because drug dealing knows no age. I have already been to college and I have tried my hand at a rap career, but I haven’t ever played the drug dealer card in the game of life. I could quit my job any day and slang rocks and potentially make millions, and I am fittin’ to do exactly that. So any self-respecting 20-something should throw out the Jordan’s, burn the brightly colored t-shirts, retire the Wu-Tang cassettes, put away the record player and listen to some hood shit. Some gangster music. Because you can never be too old to seep lean, smoke weed and sell drugs. And that is coming from someone with a liberal arts degree, mother fucker.

P.S. And the reason I did not mention OFWGKTA is because who the hell cares?